"For the U.S. to have a long-term future in ethanol, it can't come from corn, sugar cane or any other food-based crop. Researchers, politicians and farmers are all starting to agree that we either won't grow enough of it or can't afford not to eat it.
While Brazil made its ethanol niche in sugar cane, the next evolutionary step is cellulosic technology — breaking down everything from pulpy cane fiber called bagasse, corn scraps, or almost any nonfood crop into its most basic sugars, and then into fuel.
This will be what makes or breaks ethanol in Louisiana. Drawing on scraps from the state's two largest agricultural sectors, sugar cane and forestry, it could add a new avenue of profit for farmers and mills eager to diversify.
"Whether it's from bagasse or forest residue, I think Louisiana is going to be capable of being more of an aggressive player in biofuels in the future," said Brian Jennings, executive director of the American Coalition for Ethanol. "You could help supply a clean-burning alternative to supplement your oil capabilities."
A race for the recipe
The key to cellulosic taking off in the U.S. is making the process efficient enough to be cheaper than gasoline.
The Department of Energy wants to bring down the overall cost of making cellulosic ethanol to $1.07 a gallon by 2012. That's not even half what it costs now to make, but is less than the current $1.50 cost to make a gallon of corn-based ethanol.
Unlike cane where sugar is ready to go, plant matter is made up of cellulose and hemicellulose, which breaks down into sugars with the help of enzymes.
A handful of companies in the U.S. are racing to engineer an enzyme that eats cellulose and poops alcohol (and carbon dioxide) faster and cheaper than anyone else's.
Forty minutes west of Lafayette in Jennings, a company named Verenium is leading the pack.
Based in Massachusetts, Verenium built a small-scale plant in Jennings in 2006, and began quietly cooking about two tons of local crop waste per day into ethanol. It's one of a few pilot plants in the U.S. acting like chemistry labs for cellulosic ethanol.
In February, Verenium broke ground on a 1.4 million gallon per-year demonstration plant right next to the pilot site. It would be the first cellulosic plant of its size in the U.S., and Verenium officials boast they're at least one year ahead of anyone else in the game.
This new plant should be built in March and start running later next year, but is still just the second of three phases, meant to help Verenium perfect the process on their way to building a commercial-scale plant.
That could make 25 million to 30 million gallons of ethanol per year from biomass as far away as New Iberia, if it were built in Jennings. Sites in Florida and Texas are also being considered for the large, third-phase plant.
"If we built here, this would be the only site with pilot, demonstration and commercial plants all together," said Mark Eichenseer, Verenium's vice president of operations. "It would be a unique place with full teaching potential."
Brazil wants cellulosic
A cellulosic breakthrough is just as important for Brazil's ethanol future as in the U.S., helping limit farming's encroachment on the country's pristine savanna and rainforest lands.
Environmentalists are concerned for both if cane acreage doubles as expected in the next decade. Sugar cane won't move into these areas because the climate's not right, but it could push cattle farmers north into the Amazon.
Researchers are learning how to break Brazil's 128 million tons of cane bagasse per year down into fuel. Sugar mills there, and most in the U.S., burn their bagasse to generate steam and power but do it in an outdated, inefficient way. A lot of the value in that biomass is lost in the process that could be made into more ethanol.
Ivo Fouto's new company, Biocel, is trying to make that process a seamless addition to existing sugar mills.
Biocel's goal is an addition to the mill where bagasse would be diverted, go through a cellulosic breakdown, and the sweet liquid result would circle back to the mill's ethanol refining-end. The same could be done in any Louisiana mill, he said.
"What we want to do is get more value on the same planted area, because more and more the cost of the land is getting higher," Fouto said. "The alternative is going to new frontiers to make new mills and cane, but to do that you need more infrastructure costs. So, the best alternative is to maximize the amount of product you get out of the same planted area."
In some ways bagasse is the fastest track to cellulosic success. It's a feedstock that comes out of the milling process power-washed and clean, requiring a simpler enzyme than corn-field scraps or other dirty crops fresh from the field, which Fouto said may need stronger enzymes and more time to break down.
Cellulosic support needed
Ethanol demand pushed U.S. corn growers to plant more than double the acreage in 2007 of five years ago. But even if the entire corn crop was turned into ethanol it would replace just 12 percent to 15 percent of gasoline consumption, while squeezing the food supply and threatening areas like the Gulf of Mexico, where fertilizer runoff down the Mississippi River is contributing to a dead zone.
The U.S. can sustainably produce 1.3 billion tons per year of cellulosic biomass, using corn and cane leftovers while planting new energy crops like switchgrass on poor soil, according to a 2005 report from the Department of Energy and USDA. It would be enough biomass to replace 30 percent or more of current petroleum needs, and last year the DOE published a "research roadmap" to get it done by 2030.
The new U.S. Energy Bill could give cellulosic technology the government-backing it needs to attract more investment. A Senate bill version would boost the U.S. renewable fuels mandate from 7.5 billion gallons annually by 2012 to 36 billion gallons by 2022 — 21 billion of which would have to be from cellulosic sources.
"In 2005, the Energy Bill sent a necessary signal to the marketplace that we're committed to producing fuel ethanol from corn. This bill would do much the same thing, but for cellulosic," said Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association. "You're providing confidence in the marketplace that a market will be there, giving companies today investing hundreds of millions into this research the firm footing that they need to move forward."
The federal investment is risky but worth the payoff, Hartwig said. The cellulosic process would raise ethanol yields from sugar cane by about one-third an acre, and could do the same for corn, generating more profit for farmers and making ethanol cheaper for consumers.
State in prime position
If an ethanol company focused its cellulosic plant in Louisiana, they'd have access to a buffet of feedstock.
"We can grow a lot," said Mark Zappi, dean of UL's College of Engineering, who heads an alternative energy development program that partners with other universities. "Timber, corn, soy, cane, switchgrass, manure and wastes from it all. Even cracked rice, a secondary product for animal feed, could be used."
Verenium spoke to about 20 Vermilion Parish farmers in late September about growing new crops like "energy" cane in the next two years to provide biomass for the Jennings plant. LSU AgCenter has bred three types of new energy cane that is mostly plant fiber, with just 3 percent sugar inside compared to 20 percent to 30 percent in normal cane.
Verenium wants 1,500 acres of biomass crops planted in 2008 and 15,000 acres in 2009 to support its current demonstration plant, and see if farmers can plant enough to support a larger commercial plant in southwest Louisiana.
Farmers may profit $150 to $200 per acre on an energy crop. The company is considering contracts where they'd even harvest and transport the crop for the farmers.
Those profits are still low, said Howard Cormier, county agent for LSU AgCenter. Energy crops now must compete for farmers' attention with the skyrocketing price of soybeans, in demand for food and biodiesel.
Some farmers can pick up a new crop tomorrow and grow it if the price is right. It's not as easy for Louisiana's sugarcane farmers. Cane's a multiyear commitment, and their harvest equipment doesn't work on just any crop."
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